The Alma Center in Milwaukee believes that to create true safety for victims and children in violent homes -- and to break the cycle of violence -- the abuser must change. The agency provides pioneering trauma-informed healing, education, supportive services, and a positive peer community to promote lifestyle transformation for abusive men.

Its innovative approach has been recognized as a model for the nation as a recipient of the prestigious 2014 Celebrating Solutions Award from The Mary Byron Project in Louisville. More than 300 applicants from around the country competed for the award. The honoree was chosen by a panel of leading domestic-violence experts.

"We are honored and humbled to receive national recognition for our work,” said Terri Strodthoff, founder and executive director of The Alma Center, which is supported by Milwaukee's Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. "We know that domestic violence is learned, and can be unlearned. Men who perpetrate domestic violence can change, and their change is crucial to our community, their partners, and the next generation of children."

Most of the men who attend Alma Center programs are the now grown-up boys who were themselves raised in abusive families. The Alma Center utilizes the best of research and evidence-based practice to create transformative interventions to break the generational cycle of violence.